Ceilidh Capers with Sandy Legget
by Karin Ingram
How did it all start?
I was aged about 10 and my cousin, Jim Bell, came to stay with us for a wee while. Jim was a bit older than me and was an accomplished accordionist, already competing and performing at ‘gigs’. I used to listen to him practicing in the house and my mum and dad asked me if I would like to learn the accordion too. They bought me a 96 bass Guerrini and I was off!
Was there any other music in the family?
To be honest with you, no! My granddad on my father’s side played the bagpipes a little but other than that, the main interest in Scottish music came from my father’s tremendous collection of old ‘78’ records. He still has them today although sadly, not the means to play them, although I do believe it is possible to get them copied onto a more modern format. Perhaps if any of your readers have experience of this sort of thing they could let me know!
Who taught you?
In those days I stayed in Dunbar, the same town as John Leslie so he was the obvious choice of teacher. John’s style was classically based and he encouraged all his pupils to sit exams and to compete in all classes at both Perth and Musselburgh Championships. I enjoyed competing, with very limited success, the two highlights being victory in the Intermediate Duet playing The Mexican Hat Dance with Ian Hutson and a triumph in the 1983 Higher Intermediate Solo – mum still has the cup!
I also changed accordions, moving to a full size, 120 bass, brand new Bugari Armando which my mum and dad very kindly bought for me. It had white bass keys with red lining, a rarity in those days, very stylish and one of the photos here shows me aged about 13 with the new instrument. John also ran an Accordion Orchestra and I enjoyed playing at various functions, mainly in south-east Scotland, with them. It was great experience for later life playing at concerts and as well as the orchestral arrangements, John liked to give each player the chance of a solo spot at the concerts. The John Leslie Accordion Orchestra gave me my first recording experience when we recoded an L.P. Accordion Versatility. Great fun!
As a wee aside from there, we did return to Perth in 1995 and managed to secure a victory in the Trio and Band competitions. I was keen to try and do the ‘Grand Slam’ with victory at Musselburgh the following March so that we had all four titles together but the competition coincided with our honeymoon. I would like to say I narrowly lost and went on honeymoon but I’m afraid I would be telling lies, however, in March 1997 we Trio and Band there too!
How did you progress from there?
From there Ian and I used to play at various functions, none of them desperately exciting. My Gran used to run ‘The Dunbar Pensioners’, so you could be sure, if they couldn’t get anyone else to come along and entertain them at their monthly get together, Ian and I would be ‘invited’. There was also the usual round of school concerts, WRI, Women’s Guild, coffee mornings, coffee evenings and fund-raising concerts.
I’ll never forget the first time we received payment for playing. We’d been asked to play at a concert in Paxton Village Hall and at the end of it the chap who had booked us, Tommy Grieve of ‘Riverside’ handed us an envelope each. We didn’t open them till we were traveling home in the back of Ian’s mum’s car and we nearly had a fit when we saw we had been paid £7 each!!! A fortune in those days I can assure you.
From there my musical interest had to compete strongly with rugby and for a few years I was content to play only occasionally. We used to play every other Sunday at The West Barnes Inn and musical encouragement and influence in those days came from people such as Davie Patrick, Andrew Knight, Graeme Cockburn and Gordon Clark to name but four.
Do you still have the Bugari?
Sadly no. Around 1987 I bought a Hohner Morino IVN from Graeme Munro who stayed in Haddington and for a while kept both accordions, but when I moved into my own house in 1991 I decided to sell the Bugari as it was never played and sat in the cupboard – it seemed a shame! I still have the Morino; it’s a lovely box and I wouldn’t swap it for the world.
When was the Carseloch Ceilidh Band formed?
In 1995 I moved through to Ayrshire with my work and round about the same time we had passed an audition with BBC Radio Scotland for ‘Take the Floor’. I decided that the band needed a name, I didn’t want to be Sandy Legget and his SDB and, as we stayed in Carseloch Road, decided that The Carseloch Ceilidh Band would be a fine name. Original line-up for that first broadcast was myself, Andrew Knight on fiddle, Peter Wood on second box, Shauna on piano, Doug Cargill playing bass and the drummer was Ally MacIntyre.
In September of that year we recorded Dusk till Dawn, the band’s debut CD, and the only change from ‘TTF’ was Steven MacInnes who joined the band as the drummer.
How did you and Steven meet then?
I first met young Master MacInnes when he was playing in a pop band on the Cal Mac Pier, Tobermory during one of my earliest Mull festivals. I remember saying to Ian Hutson as we trudged up the steep steps to The Western Isles Hotel, “Listen to that young fella on the drums, I wonder if he is any use at Scottish Dance Band drumming? Imagine my surprise a couple of hours later when he appeared on stage at The Mishnish for a tune! Our friendship developed from there but it wasn’t until late 1995, when I was searching for a drummer to go to Bulgaria at fairly short notice, that he began to play regularly with us. He was able to go to Sofia, which in those days was quite a scary place, and soon after began coming down for gigs, initially at The Riverside Club in Glasgow. Steven now plays with us as often as he is able to, especially if he is able to come down for a weekend of gigs rather than just the one night, and he and I are now firm personal friends as well as musical colleagues.
So how do you manage the rest of the time?
I am very fortunate that there are other musicians who play with us on a regular basis, adding that extra dimension to the sound of the band. I would like to mention Graeme Cockburn in particular as his singing talents are put to particularly good use on many occasions.
Do you get back to Dunbar to play?
I don’t get back to Dunbar as often as I would like to. Sunday nights at The West Barns Inn are still going strong, though now that Rhona has started school it will prove very difficult to play there and then get her to school on Monday morning.
The Dunbar Traditional Music Festival takes place at the end of September each year and that often provides us with an opportunity to ‘go home’. Luckily we are quite often asked to play at the Saturday night dance and that is always good fun and there are many sessions and informal tunes throughout the weekend too.
How do you fit everything in?
With great difficulty! I have to say that it isn’t easy juggling the demands of a young family, a demanding job and a busy ceilidh band and you’ll notice the order that I have placed these three things in!
Shauna and I are very fortunate that we have been blessed with two smashing wee kids, Rhona (4) and Struan (2). Shauna gave up her work when we had Rhona although she continues to play at most of the gigs that the band undertakes. My giving up work was not an option and, to be honest, I am quite happy about that. I’m an Air Traffic Control engineer at the Scottish and Oceanic Air Traffic Control Centre at Prestwick, and I find my music a superb release from the daily bustle at work. It sometimes isn’t easy , trailing back from a distant Accordion club and only getting a couple of hours’ sleep before heading back into work but I suppose I am the type of person that finds it difficult to sit still anyway and be bored if I wasn’t doing something! Suffice to say it’s not often I find myself sitting in the house wondering what to do with myself.
One gig a couple of years ago sticks in my mind. Andy Murray and I had been over performing at Ballymena Accordion club and enjoyed a smashing day and night’s hospitality with our Irish friends. We were due to get the midnight ferry from Larne, which should have delivered us onto the mainland at around two in the morning leaving us a shortish drive up the coast, a few hours’ sleep then off to work. When we set sail the Captain advised us that it was ‘a wee bit rough’ and he would be ‘deploying the ships stabilising equipment’. It turned out it was a Force 8 gale and once we had set sail we couldn’t dock at Cairnryan because there was another ship in difficulty there. We then sailed up and down the coast waiting for the gale to subside, finally docked at half past seven in the morning, just in time to get to work for nine!
What about the current line-up, when did you start playing together?
The current band first played together at the Shetland Accordion and Fiddle Club Festival last year, October 2001. I had been let down fairly late on and with only a week to go managed to get ahold of Iain Anderson and persuade him to come up with us. We met in Edinburgh and over a pint at Aberdeen Airport, discussed what tunes we might play in Unst that evening. I told Iain not to worry that we had never played together before, we’d have a wee tune in one of the session rooms that afternoon, a run through before the dance in Unst and that would be fine. We arrived at The Islesburg Centre, walked up the stairs and were met at the top, still with our coats on, by Irene Jamieson. “Fine to see you Sandy”, she exclaimed, “and your whole band’s here, excellent, we’ll get you to open the Festival , you’ve only got five minutes to get onto the stage, Iain Peterson is just about to make his opening speech!” The best laid plans…! However, we opened with a Boston Two Step and never looked back.
The Clickimin Grand Dance that year was terrific fun too. Andy Ross, the MC, was winding the crowd up before we started to play and we were up for it too and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The Sunday night party, where all the musicians and Festival organisers and helpers enjoy themselves was super fun too. The Shetland musicians always like to put on something special to keep us ‘Southmoothers’ in our place and we responded with our own version, we decided to sing part of a Boston Two-Step! It seemed like a good idea at the time! It went down well enough and we were well chuffed. However, at the airport the next day, whilst waiting forlornly for the fog to clear, a young lady who had attended the Festival (Heather Graham) got chatting to Steven and me. We asked her if she had enjoyed the Festival, what was her favourite part etc whereupon she produced this mini-disc player and asked us if we wanted to hear ourselves singing The Quarter Master’s Stores. It was not great, I have to confess, but it was lively and certainly different!
As a footnote to my ramblings about the Shetland Festival, we were unable to fly home that day due to the foggy weather, something not even National Air Traffic Services can do much about I’m afraid. We had to go by boat, arriving in Aberdeen at 8 o’clock on the Tuesday morning. In a fit of madness earlier in the year, I had agreed to perform at Wick (yes, Wick) A&F Club that evening so Steven, Iain and I trudged up to Wick from Aberdeen and duly performed that evening. Once we got going we actually thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and the crowd seemed very appreciative too. It then seemed the obvious thing to do to have a drink or two with our hosts after the Club had finished, our tiredness seemed to have disappeared; I’m sorry to say it soon returned the next morning!!! That’s showbiz as they say!
Do you get up to Shetland at any other time during the year?
I’m extremely fortunate to have been up to the Northern Isles fairly regularly since my first visit in January 1996. Peter Wood invited me up then to perform at Up Helly Aa and composed the tune Sandy’s Shetland Stag Week to mark the occasion. For the last four years I have been invited to perform at Anderson High School with Da fustra band and that is always a super night, good tunes and good fun too.
I have also managed to become a fairly regular visitor to The Shetland A&F Festival, normally held around mid-October. The organizational talent behind this event is phenomenal, it must take hours and hours of work to arrange travel and accommodation for so many visiting musicians and enthusiasts, and the success of the Festival is a tribute to all the hard work carried out by the Committee.
I have also had the privilege of visiting Shetland in a private jet! My work commitments took me round Sumburgh, Stornoway and Tiree over a couple of enjoyable days two winters ago, our first port of call being Sumburgh. Only stayed for about four hours before moving on to Stornoway, my shortest visit yet!
What does the future hold?
We are probably as busy just now as we will be able to be without going full-time.
We have recorded CD number three, Ceilidh Capers, which is available now directly from me, from Highlander Music and from all good music stores – oh yes, and from High Level Music in Lerwick according to Peter Wood! The inspiration for the CD came from The Shetland Festival in 2001; we had such a good time we decided we had to record together, and I am very pleased with the outcome. It is a return to the mix of tunes, mainly Old Time Dance style, which we first recorded on our debut album Dusk Till Dawn, and contains something for everyone: my own favourite is the track we put together for Strip The Willow in Shetland 2001, a cracking set of jigs and reels which I think, come over very well on the recording.
The other musical ambition I have is to perform at an Outside Broadcast for ‘TTF’. All five of our recordings for the programme have been studio sessions, we’ve never quite managed to secure an OB so if you’re reading this Mr Mutch, you only have to ask!
I have also recently developed the Band website, www.ccband.co.uk which has been up and running for a few months now. My work colleague and neighbour, Steve Graham, was instrumental in the development of the site and his hard work and enthusiasm is much appreciated by me. We are starting to get a few visitors to the site now so if any readers are doing a bit of ‘surfing’ please visit the site and leave us your comments in the guest book.
What do you think about the current ‘health’ of the Scottish Dance Music scene?
Speaking from my own perspective, it seems fairly healthy I have to say. There are many excellent bands out there performing at various types of functions and events, many more of the musicians I talk to seem to be performing at functions outwith the UK, which is always nice and bands generally seem to be busy.
There also seems to be a good mix of styles amongst the bands, from the traditional ‘Scottish Country Dance’ bands through the bands that perhaps suit an ‘Old Time Dance’ better and then there are bands who prefer to target their style at a younger audience, the ‘Ceilidh Dances’ that are still popular. There are some bands out there who try to cover all three styles, changing their style and tempo to suit the audience of the night, and that is the category The Carseloch Ceilidh Band falls into. I find it challenging to be playing at a Ceilidh for a couple of hundred young people one night and then the next night, slow things right down and perform at a Scottish Country Dance. Personally I don’t see anything wrong with this approach, it certainly works for us and I enjoy the variety offered by this method. It could be argued perhaps by concentrating on one type of function, the band sound can develop to a greater extent but I believe it is all down to the individual band; if it works, go for it!
I’m not sure if there is enough space in this article for me to chip in to the debate, which I have followed with great interest, regarding the artistes’ fees and the admission prices of the A&F Clubs around the country but here goes! I don’t think it is appropriate for me to judge who is right and who is wrong; all I want to do is offer the thoughts of a humble artiste.
I accept that the actual performance time, on stage, at an A&F Club is around an hour and a half at the most. However, that is by no means the whole story and the evening for the guest artiste begins much earlier. Often, the Club will be a fair distance away, involving a drive of an hour or two there and the same back and in these days of busy roads, an allowance for hold-ups has to be made. Also, it is prudent to arrive at the club some time before you are actually due on stage, to prepare, enjoy a bit of ‘crack’ and recover from the journey. There is also usually an hour’s gap in the middle of the performance to allow local musicians to entertain the audience and perhaps draw a raffle. The end result of all this is that the hour and a half performance can take anything up to seven or eight hours in actual time. By the time petrol is paid for, and the babysitter too, the actual money earned is little more than the minimum wage!
However, and this is the crux of the matter in my opinion, none of this should come as a surprise on the night. The fee should have been arranged beforehand and a quick glance at the road atlas will allow a swift guess at the amount of time it will take to travel to the Club, so the artiste is making an informed choice about taking the gig on or not. If an individual, or band for that matter, don’t feel that the fee is appropriate reward, surely the easiest thing is just to politely decline the invitation.
Any advice you could give our younger readers?
Enjoy yourselves! Playing in a Ceilidh Band or Scottish Band for that matter is a tremendously rewarding experience and the potential to travel all over the world is there with hard work, dedication and, above all, luck. If you are just setting out along the long road stick in and work hard but above all else, enjoy yourself and have fun!
Box and Fiddle
November 2002
I was aged about 10 and my cousin, Jim Bell, came to stay with us for a wee while. Jim was a bit older than me and was an accomplished accordionist, already competing and performing at ‘gigs’. I used to listen to him practicing in the house and my mum and dad asked me if I would like to learn the accordion too. They bought me a 96 bass Guerrini and I was off!
Was there any other music in the family?
To be honest with you, no! My granddad on my father’s side played the bagpipes a little but other than that, the main interest in Scottish music came from my father’s tremendous collection of old ‘78’ records. He still has them today although sadly, not the means to play them, although I do believe it is possible to get them copied onto a more modern format. Perhaps if any of your readers have experience of this sort of thing they could let me know!
Who taught you?
In those days I stayed in Dunbar, the same town as John Leslie so he was the obvious choice of teacher. John’s style was classically based and he encouraged all his pupils to sit exams and to compete in all classes at both Perth and Musselburgh Championships. I enjoyed competing, with very limited success, the two highlights being victory in the Intermediate Duet playing The Mexican Hat Dance with Ian Hutson and a triumph in the 1983 Higher Intermediate Solo – mum still has the cup!
I also changed accordions, moving to a full size, 120 bass, brand new Bugari Armando which my mum and dad very kindly bought for me. It had white bass keys with red lining, a rarity in those days, very stylish and one of the photos here shows me aged about 13 with the new instrument. John also ran an Accordion Orchestra and I enjoyed playing at various functions, mainly in south-east Scotland, with them. It was great experience for later life playing at concerts and as well as the orchestral arrangements, John liked to give each player the chance of a solo spot at the concerts. The John Leslie Accordion Orchestra gave me my first recording experience when we recoded an L.P. Accordion Versatility. Great fun!
As a wee aside from there, we did return to Perth in 1995 and managed to secure a victory in the Trio and Band competitions. I was keen to try and do the ‘Grand Slam’ with victory at Musselburgh the following March so that we had all four titles together but the competition coincided with our honeymoon. I would like to say I narrowly lost and went on honeymoon but I’m afraid I would be telling lies, however, in March 1997 we Trio and Band there too!
How did you progress from there?
From there Ian and I used to play at various functions, none of them desperately exciting. My Gran used to run ‘The Dunbar Pensioners’, so you could be sure, if they couldn’t get anyone else to come along and entertain them at their monthly get together, Ian and I would be ‘invited’. There was also the usual round of school concerts, WRI, Women’s Guild, coffee mornings, coffee evenings and fund-raising concerts.
I’ll never forget the first time we received payment for playing. We’d been asked to play at a concert in Paxton Village Hall and at the end of it the chap who had booked us, Tommy Grieve of ‘Riverside’ handed us an envelope each. We didn’t open them till we were traveling home in the back of Ian’s mum’s car and we nearly had a fit when we saw we had been paid £7 each!!! A fortune in those days I can assure you.
From there my musical interest had to compete strongly with rugby and for a few years I was content to play only occasionally. We used to play every other Sunday at The West Barnes Inn and musical encouragement and influence in those days came from people such as Davie Patrick, Andrew Knight, Graeme Cockburn and Gordon Clark to name but four.
Do you still have the Bugari?
Sadly no. Around 1987 I bought a Hohner Morino IVN from Graeme Munro who stayed in Haddington and for a while kept both accordions, but when I moved into my own house in 1991 I decided to sell the Bugari as it was never played and sat in the cupboard – it seemed a shame! I still have the Morino; it’s a lovely box and I wouldn’t swap it for the world.
When was the Carseloch Ceilidh Band formed?
In 1995 I moved through to Ayrshire with my work and round about the same time we had passed an audition with BBC Radio Scotland for ‘Take the Floor’. I decided that the band needed a name, I didn’t want to be Sandy Legget and his SDB and, as we stayed in Carseloch Road, decided that The Carseloch Ceilidh Band would be a fine name. Original line-up for that first broadcast was myself, Andrew Knight on fiddle, Peter Wood on second box, Shauna on piano, Doug Cargill playing bass and the drummer was Ally MacIntyre.
In September of that year we recorded Dusk till Dawn, the band’s debut CD, and the only change from ‘TTF’ was Steven MacInnes who joined the band as the drummer.
How did you and Steven meet then?
I first met young Master MacInnes when he was playing in a pop band on the Cal Mac Pier, Tobermory during one of my earliest Mull festivals. I remember saying to Ian Hutson as we trudged up the steep steps to The Western Isles Hotel, “Listen to that young fella on the drums, I wonder if he is any use at Scottish Dance Band drumming? Imagine my surprise a couple of hours later when he appeared on stage at The Mishnish for a tune! Our friendship developed from there but it wasn’t until late 1995, when I was searching for a drummer to go to Bulgaria at fairly short notice, that he began to play regularly with us. He was able to go to Sofia, which in those days was quite a scary place, and soon after began coming down for gigs, initially at The Riverside Club in Glasgow. Steven now plays with us as often as he is able to, especially if he is able to come down for a weekend of gigs rather than just the one night, and he and I are now firm personal friends as well as musical colleagues.
So how do you manage the rest of the time?
I am very fortunate that there are other musicians who play with us on a regular basis, adding that extra dimension to the sound of the band. I would like to mention Graeme Cockburn in particular as his singing talents are put to particularly good use on many occasions.
Do you get back to Dunbar to play?
I don’t get back to Dunbar as often as I would like to. Sunday nights at The West Barns Inn are still going strong, though now that Rhona has started school it will prove very difficult to play there and then get her to school on Monday morning.
The Dunbar Traditional Music Festival takes place at the end of September each year and that often provides us with an opportunity to ‘go home’. Luckily we are quite often asked to play at the Saturday night dance and that is always good fun and there are many sessions and informal tunes throughout the weekend too.
How do you fit everything in?
With great difficulty! I have to say that it isn’t easy juggling the demands of a young family, a demanding job and a busy ceilidh band and you’ll notice the order that I have placed these three things in!
Shauna and I are very fortunate that we have been blessed with two smashing wee kids, Rhona (4) and Struan (2). Shauna gave up her work when we had Rhona although she continues to play at most of the gigs that the band undertakes. My giving up work was not an option and, to be honest, I am quite happy about that. I’m an Air Traffic Control engineer at the Scottish and Oceanic Air Traffic Control Centre at Prestwick, and I find my music a superb release from the daily bustle at work. It sometimes isn’t easy , trailing back from a distant Accordion club and only getting a couple of hours’ sleep before heading back into work but I suppose I am the type of person that finds it difficult to sit still anyway and be bored if I wasn’t doing something! Suffice to say it’s not often I find myself sitting in the house wondering what to do with myself.
One gig a couple of years ago sticks in my mind. Andy Murray and I had been over performing at Ballymena Accordion club and enjoyed a smashing day and night’s hospitality with our Irish friends. We were due to get the midnight ferry from Larne, which should have delivered us onto the mainland at around two in the morning leaving us a shortish drive up the coast, a few hours’ sleep then off to work. When we set sail the Captain advised us that it was ‘a wee bit rough’ and he would be ‘deploying the ships stabilising equipment’. It turned out it was a Force 8 gale and once we had set sail we couldn’t dock at Cairnryan because there was another ship in difficulty there. We then sailed up and down the coast waiting for the gale to subside, finally docked at half past seven in the morning, just in time to get to work for nine!
What about the current line-up, when did you start playing together?
The current band first played together at the Shetland Accordion and Fiddle Club Festival last year, October 2001. I had been let down fairly late on and with only a week to go managed to get ahold of Iain Anderson and persuade him to come up with us. We met in Edinburgh and over a pint at Aberdeen Airport, discussed what tunes we might play in Unst that evening. I told Iain not to worry that we had never played together before, we’d have a wee tune in one of the session rooms that afternoon, a run through before the dance in Unst and that would be fine. We arrived at The Islesburg Centre, walked up the stairs and were met at the top, still with our coats on, by Irene Jamieson. “Fine to see you Sandy”, she exclaimed, “and your whole band’s here, excellent, we’ll get you to open the Festival , you’ve only got five minutes to get onto the stage, Iain Peterson is just about to make his opening speech!” The best laid plans…! However, we opened with a Boston Two Step and never looked back.
The Clickimin Grand Dance that year was terrific fun too. Andy Ross, the MC, was winding the crowd up before we started to play and we were up for it too and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The Sunday night party, where all the musicians and Festival organisers and helpers enjoy themselves was super fun too. The Shetland musicians always like to put on something special to keep us ‘Southmoothers’ in our place and we responded with our own version, we decided to sing part of a Boston Two-Step! It seemed like a good idea at the time! It went down well enough and we were well chuffed. However, at the airport the next day, whilst waiting forlornly for the fog to clear, a young lady who had attended the Festival (Heather Graham) got chatting to Steven and me. We asked her if she had enjoyed the Festival, what was her favourite part etc whereupon she produced this mini-disc player and asked us if we wanted to hear ourselves singing The Quarter Master’s Stores. It was not great, I have to confess, but it was lively and certainly different!
As a footnote to my ramblings about the Shetland Festival, we were unable to fly home that day due to the foggy weather, something not even National Air Traffic Services can do much about I’m afraid. We had to go by boat, arriving in Aberdeen at 8 o’clock on the Tuesday morning. In a fit of madness earlier in the year, I had agreed to perform at Wick (yes, Wick) A&F Club that evening so Steven, Iain and I trudged up to Wick from Aberdeen and duly performed that evening. Once we got going we actually thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and the crowd seemed very appreciative too. It then seemed the obvious thing to do to have a drink or two with our hosts after the Club had finished, our tiredness seemed to have disappeared; I’m sorry to say it soon returned the next morning!!! That’s showbiz as they say!
Do you get up to Shetland at any other time during the year?
I’m extremely fortunate to have been up to the Northern Isles fairly regularly since my first visit in January 1996. Peter Wood invited me up then to perform at Up Helly Aa and composed the tune Sandy’s Shetland Stag Week to mark the occasion. For the last four years I have been invited to perform at Anderson High School with Da fustra band and that is always a super night, good tunes and good fun too.
I have also managed to become a fairly regular visitor to The Shetland A&F Festival, normally held around mid-October. The organizational talent behind this event is phenomenal, it must take hours and hours of work to arrange travel and accommodation for so many visiting musicians and enthusiasts, and the success of the Festival is a tribute to all the hard work carried out by the Committee.
I have also had the privilege of visiting Shetland in a private jet! My work commitments took me round Sumburgh, Stornoway and Tiree over a couple of enjoyable days two winters ago, our first port of call being Sumburgh. Only stayed for about four hours before moving on to Stornoway, my shortest visit yet!
What does the future hold?
We are probably as busy just now as we will be able to be without going full-time.
We have recorded CD number three, Ceilidh Capers, which is available now directly from me, from Highlander Music and from all good music stores – oh yes, and from High Level Music in Lerwick according to Peter Wood! The inspiration for the CD came from The Shetland Festival in 2001; we had such a good time we decided we had to record together, and I am very pleased with the outcome. It is a return to the mix of tunes, mainly Old Time Dance style, which we first recorded on our debut album Dusk Till Dawn, and contains something for everyone: my own favourite is the track we put together for Strip The Willow in Shetland 2001, a cracking set of jigs and reels which I think, come over very well on the recording.
The other musical ambition I have is to perform at an Outside Broadcast for ‘TTF’. All five of our recordings for the programme have been studio sessions, we’ve never quite managed to secure an OB so if you’re reading this Mr Mutch, you only have to ask!
I have also recently developed the Band website, www.ccband.co.uk which has been up and running for a few months now. My work colleague and neighbour, Steve Graham, was instrumental in the development of the site and his hard work and enthusiasm is much appreciated by me. We are starting to get a few visitors to the site now so if any readers are doing a bit of ‘surfing’ please visit the site and leave us your comments in the guest book.
What do you think about the current ‘health’ of the Scottish Dance Music scene?
Speaking from my own perspective, it seems fairly healthy I have to say. There are many excellent bands out there performing at various types of functions and events, many more of the musicians I talk to seem to be performing at functions outwith the UK, which is always nice and bands generally seem to be busy.
There also seems to be a good mix of styles amongst the bands, from the traditional ‘Scottish Country Dance’ bands through the bands that perhaps suit an ‘Old Time Dance’ better and then there are bands who prefer to target their style at a younger audience, the ‘Ceilidh Dances’ that are still popular. There are some bands out there who try to cover all three styles, changing their style and tempo to suit the audience of the night, and that is the category The Carseloch Ceilidh Band falls into. I find it challenging to be playing at a Ceilidh for a couple of hundred young people one night and then the next night, slow things right down and perform at a Scottish Country Dance. Personally I don’t see anything wrong with this approach, it certainly works for us and I enjoy the variety offered by this method. It could be argued perhaps by concentrating on one type of function, the band sound can develop to a greater extent but I believe it is all down to the individual band; if it works, go for it!
I’m not sure if there is enough space in this article for me to chip in to the debate, which I have followed with great interest, regarding the artistes’ fees and the admission prices of the A&F Clubs around the country but here goes! I don’t think it is appropriate for me to judge who is right and who is wrong; all I want to do is offer the thoughts of a humble artiste.
I accept that the actual performance time, on stage, at an A&F Club is around an hour and a half at the most. However, that is by no means the whole story and the evening for the guest artiste begins much earlier. Often, the Club will be a fair distance away, involving a drive of an hour or two there and the same back and in these days of busy roads, an allowance for hold-ups has to be made. Also, it is prudent to arrive at the club some time before you are actually due on stage, to prepare, enjoy a bit of ‘crack’ and recover from the journey. There is also usually an hour’s gap in the middle of the performance to allow local musicians to entertain the audience and perhaps draw a raffle. The end result of all this is that the hour and a half performance can take anything up to seven or eight hours in actual time. By the time petrol is paid for, and the babysitter too, the actual money earned is little more than the minimum wage!
However, and this is the crux of the matter in my opinion, none of this should come as a surprise on the night. The fee should have been arranged beforehand and a quick glance at the road atlas will allow a swift guess at the amount of time it will take to travel to the Club, so the artiste is making an informed choice about taking the gig on or not. If an individual, or band for that matter, don’t feel that the fee is appropriate reward, surely the easiest thing is just to politely decline the invitation.
Any advice you could give our younger readers?
Enjoy yourselves! Playing in a Ceilidh Band or Scottish Band for that matter is a tremendously rewarding experience and the potential to travel all over the world is there with hard work, dedication and, above all, luck. If you are just setting out along the long road stick in and work hard but above all else, enjoy yourself and have fun!
Box and Fiddle
November 2002